1 Kings 9:15 has been the source of naïve historical reconstruction for the Solomonic period as well as naïve dismissals of the historicity of Solomon. To be sure, the biblical text has too often mined —as though looking for treasure— by the past generation of “biblical” archaeologists and historians, and 1 Kings 9:15 in particular has been a poster child for the critique of such archaeological treasure hunts. At the same time, the backlash against Biblical Archaeology that has characterized the few couple of decades in Levantine Archaeology is often and ironically no less naïve in its citation of 1 Kings 9:15 and its focus on just the three cities of Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer and disregarding the larger literary context. This text reflects typical attributes of biblical historical literature. It is an edited text, but it is also based on a historical record. Using careful critical methodology, we can "excavate" the text and peel back the layers. Unfortunately, on the one hand, biblical scholarship has tended to be rather arbitrary and subjective in its "excavation" methods; and, on the other hand, archaeologists frequently employ the biblical text in uncritical ways to support both minimalist and maximalist historical interpretations.